I raced through the sky toward the rough direction of the mountain area, navigation made harder by my own spell. Visibility was terrible due to the thick poison mist hanging in the air. Undeterred, I rocketed along, confident that I could find my way there eventually. My navigational task was made easier after a few minutes, since I could hear what was definitely a clash of giants, and I banked toward the sounds. Deep rumbling as parts of the mountain broke off, animalistic cries, and the occasional clang of a blade crashing off something painted a pretty vivid picture of the snake engaging the minotaur.
As I got closer, I also spotted the occasional flash of fire, which was no doubt due to the obsidian minotaurs' skill set. Another minute later, the battling pair finally came into view, and what a sight it was. The Reaper snake had detached all of its blades from its body and was going all in on offense, using its body in conjunction with the blades to pull off some incredibly agile maneuvers. The damn thing looked more like a millipede than a snake at this point. Hundreds of flexible blades crashed into the defending minotaur from all sides as it was encircled by the snake.
To the minotaurs' credit, while it was on the back foot, it didn’t look like it was losing at all. With its ability to summon obsidian constructs, it had covered its entire body in a layer of obsidian armor, making it look like a giant medieval knight. Every time a blade smashed into the armor, bits and pieces broke off and flew toward the snake's body like heat-seeking missiles. Additionally, the Minotaur was wielding a giant slab of obsidian as a sort of tower shield and a giant club in its other hand. The battle was illuminated by several patches of lava flowing down the mountain, no doubt originating from spells similar to my lava torrent spell.
At every moment, hundreds of blades and obsidian shards were flying around, the blades both attacking the minotaur and defending from the shards that resulted from said attacks. While the minotaur had turtled up, it wasn’t passive at all, lashing out with both the club and the shield in an attempt to squash the snake, but due to the incredibly bendy body of the snake, combined with its high mobility, every attempted attack hit empty air.
Three spots around the minotaur started glowing an ominous red before exploding into a volcanic eruption, spewing lava everywhere. The snake was forced to back off for a second, lest it be caught by the destruction. Not wasting the moment of respite, the minotaur's whole body lit up with the telltale sign of a skill being used. With a speed not thought possible before, the heavily armored minotaur rushed at the snake while all the lava it ran past collected into a big ball behind it. Shortly before reaching the snake, the minotaur stuck the tip of its club into the lava, which immediately formed into the head of a hammer before solidifying into obsidian.
The reaper snake was already attempting to dodge, but was forced to recall all of its blades to form armor as the hammer was brought down with earth-shattering force. It barely managed to dodge the blow, but the newly formed hammer head exploded into shrapnel the second it hit the ground, sending differently sized obsidian shards every which way. Somehow, all of the shards managed to hit the snake, displaying the precise control the minotaur had over them. Some of the larger ones managed to punch through the snakes armor, while some of the smaller ones managed to find gaps within the segments. It was the first real damage I’d seen in the fight, although it wasn’t much.
The fight was mesmerizing to watch, almost making me forget that I was supposed to take part as well. For a few seconds, I was torn between stepping in and speeding things up to not only progress the quest, get some points, and have some fun myself, or continue to watch as an amazing fight took place. During the tournament, I’d come to realize that I enjoyed watching a good fight almost as much as actually fighting, so the decision was not an easy one. For example, what kind of crazy finishers did these two have? What the minotaur just did looked more like a creative chain of skills, rather than a single, strong skill. Surely both contestants had some wild ultimate skill to pull out when things got dicey.
While I was contemplating, it was the snake's turn to light up like a Christmas tree. The blades along its body started spinning at a ludicrous speed, emitting a high-pitched whirr. How they spun like that while being firmly attached to the body was beyond me, but the snake had turned itself into a giant drill of sorts by having some of the front blades form a tip in front of its face. It then proceeded to dig into the mountain as if it were made of butter and disappeared within a mere two seconds.
Was it planning to escape? Or did it want to launch a surprise attack by shooting out of the ground at the minotaur? Whatever its intentions were, going underground turned out to be a mistake. The minotaur let out a guttural roar, and a spell matrix appeared in front of it. The speed at which it constructed the matrix was passable, most likely heavily assisted by the system, indicating a high-level spell. I did my best to study the spell as it was made, recognizing some similarities to my lava torrent spell, which identified it as a lava spell of sorts, which made sense. Judging by the complexity, I’d say it would be an S-tier spell, which made me look forward to what was about to happen.
The spell completed before the snake could do whatever it wanted to do, and the effects were immediately visible. Emanating from the minotaur, the ground heated up in an expanding circle, the rock starting to glow an ominous orange. Within a few seconds, the mountain within a hundred-meter radius started to melt and turn into lava. The spell was apparently extending quite a bit into the mountain as well, as an unholy screech of pain could be heard through the tunnels made by the snake. I could only imagine that the snake was suddenly surrounded by lava instead of solid rock, struggling against the immense heat while unable to move properly.
The minotaur, meanwhile, was standing on top of the roiling lava as if it were solid ground. Another spell matrix appeared, and even though I didn’t recognize much of the spell's structure, I had a pretty good guess as to what was about to happen. Just as I thought, upon completion of the spell, with a loud crack, all the lava solidified into Obsidian. Not giving the snake any time to react, the minotaur smashed down with its club wrapped in the glow of a skill, shattering the massive piece of obsidian into a million pieces. The obsidian was moving around as if it were water, roiling around violently while being ground to dust.
That snapped me out of my fascinated trance, and a quick glance at the quest window confirmed what I’d feared. The participants had decreased by one, which meant the snake had been decimated down there. I berated myself for having missed my chance to join the fray and collect another point, but there was no use crying over spilled milk. There was still a point to be gotten, and the minotaur was too busy celebrating to notice me.
The minotaurs’ armor was incredible, serving as both a defensive and offensive tool, giving the snake a hard time. I suspected that the minotaur was some sort of elite evolution, giving it an edge over almost all monsters of the same tier. Of course, if the minotaur was an elite, I was a natural disaster in comparison. I let loose a void rend, followed by a full array of void javelins, adding a void laser for good measure. After the surprise attack, I teleported to a different spot, observing the result of my probing to formulate a proper plan.
As the dust settled, an angry minotaur emerged, frantically looking around for the sneaky attacker that got the drop on it. But, much to my relief, it was looking decidedly worse for wear. Large chunks of its armor had been stripped off by my attack, and I got a proper look at the damage it had sustained so far. Apparently, the snake had gotten in quite a few good hits before I came along, since the minotaur was riddled by deep lacerations. Due to the self-repairing function of its armor, it had been hard to tell how damaged the minotaur had been, but it was clearly on its last legs.
Not wanting to drag the fight out longer than necessary, since I’d already wasted time and points by watching, I sent out a barrage of spells to finish the minotaur off. The big lad tried to put up a token resistance, flinging shards of obsidian and globs of lava my way after figuring out where I was, but it was a futile endeavor. It was too hurt, and I was simply too strong in comparison. I almost felt a bit bad for bullying the thing. Almost.
Having gotten my second kill, I was just about to check the quest window to check the situation, when a sharp wind picked up. The turbulence made it hard to keep gliding, so I landed and took a second to figure out what was happening. The winds got stronger still, and after a while my poison mist started to clear up, allowing me to see further and further, eventually revealing its source.
In the forested area, a tornado had formed, tearing out trees by the dozen and, more importantly, sucking up all of my poison. The tornado had turned a deep green as the entire arena was gradually cleared of the poisonous fog, much to my chagrin. Judging by who got dropped off in the forest area, my bet would be that the kobold spiritualist was the perpetrator.
Now that the view had cleared up, I could see something similar taking place in the lake area, where the water elemental had commandeered most of the lake's water. It formed a massive amorphous mass towering over the lake bed, tinted green as well, most likely due to absorbing my poison. It was a liquid after all. Sadly, I could not tell if the poison was having an effect or if it actually helped the elemental get stronger by allowing it to use my poison. It was staring at the tornado, similar to myself. It wasn’t currently fighting anything, making me believe that it had been the other kill on the board earlier. Which meant the Saurian was out of the race, since it got dropped off over there. What a bad matchup for an aquatic monster to contest with a water elemental.
Looking at the water elemental, which was by now quite a lot bigger than the liquid ice dragon had been, I almost despaired. Not only would I have to get lucky to hit that thing's core in a bigger mass than the dragons, but it was possibly immune to my poison as well. Seeing as the water elemental was “only” of the eighth tier, I should be able to dispatch of it, but it was going to be annoying.
Not wanting to deal with the damn thing quite yet, I turned my attention toward the forest area and the tornado that had foiled my poison strategy. Both the wolf and the kobold should be over there somewhere, and both made for more intriguing targets than the water elemental.
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Eighth Layer Quest:
Participants: 4/8
Personal Kills: 2